1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to food products and to their methods of preparation. More particularly, the present invention relates to ready-to-eat cereal products of reduced sodium content.
2. The Prior Art
Due to current health awareness, consumers are ever increasingly interested in food products containing lower amounts or concentrations of sodium. Numerous problems are associated with the provision of sodium reduced food Products. First and foremost, consumer's tastes are accustomed to familiar taste profiles. Simple reductions in common salt or sodium levels are readily taste apparent and for most consumers are unacceptable. While this phenomenon is common with most foods, the problem is particularly severe with cereal products of all types. From time immemorable, unacceptable blandness has been characterized "like bread without salt."
Ready-to-eat ("R-T-E") cereals are well known and popular food items including both presweetened and regular R-T-E cereals. R-T-E cereals, of course, as cereal based products typically include generous amounts of salt which are sufficient to impart salt flavor levels acceptable to consumers. Such salt levels typically are at least 1.8% (200 mg/oz. of sodium) or as much as about 4% salt by weight (400 mg/oz.).
A wide variety of approaches have been taken in the art to reduce the sodium contents of foods. Most commonly, potassium chloride has been employed in partial substitution for sodium chloride. However, potassium chloride has a bitter, metallic taste and such substitution has met with limited success. Moreover, the role of salt in flavor development and taste sensation is complex. In R-T-E cereals, an additional known technique includes an increase in cook time to develop more highly flavored products. Other approaches useful in one food type often are not applicable in other food types.
The present invention resides, in part, in the surprising discovery that salt apparently is not important to the development of desirable cooked cereal flavor but merely to taste perception. Stated otherwise, salt appears to act as a flavor potentiator rather than an important chemical intermediary to cooked cereal flavor development regardless of whether cook times are short or, more surprisingly, whether cook times are long. The present invention further resides in part that the distribution of salt in R-T-E cereals is most important to the perception of saltiness, i.e., the taste appreciation of flavor potentiation induced by salt. While it has been known to apply salt to the surface of cereal products so as to improve shelf life (see for example U.S. Pat. No. 2,093,260, issued Sep. 14, 1937 to H. K. Wilder et al.), it has now been discovered that by fabricating R-T-E cereals having a first, reduced salt portion as part of the cereal formulation and a second portion evenly and topically applied to the exterior of cereal pieces, finished R-T-E cereals can be provided with reduced actual salt content but with minimal adverse taste effects.